Time For Sibling Rivalry To Grow Up
Dear Ann Landers: We have three children - two married daughters and an unmarried son. One daughter has three young children and lives in Houston. The other daughter also has three young children. She lives near us in Florida. Our son lives in Detroit. Fortunately, all three of our children make a good living and require no financial help from us.
All of our grandchildren receive birthday gifts from us every year. We visit our daughter in Houston a few times a year, and one of our greatest pleasures is to take the grandchildren shopping for clothes, for which we pay. We also occasionally buy clothes for our Florida grandchildren, but because they live so close to us, we tend to spend money on them in other ways.
Our son, with whom we have an excellent relationship, told us recently that we were not treating him fairly. He says the clothes and birthday gifts to our grandchildren are actually subsidies to our daughters because we are saving them money. He says to be fair, we should make it up to him by giving him the amount of money we spend on gifts for the grandchildren. Also, he says that since he is in no position to receive a wedding anniversary gift, we should give him something comparable in lieu of an anniversary present every year.
Our son is a lawyer and bases his claim on the common practice of leaving one’s estate at death in equal shares to each child. It has never occurred to us to keep a balance sheet with respect to gifts for our children. We don’t know what to make of this, Miss Landers, and would appreciate some input from you. No name, please, just - Grandparents in Palm Beach, Fla.
Dear Grandparents: I think your Detroit son has a geranium in his cranium. The gifts to your grandchildren are just that - gifts. If he should marry and have children, I’m sure you would do the same for them.
Methinks the sibling rivalry thing is rearing its ugly head. The message from me to him is “Grow up, sonny.”
Dear Ann Landers: As an attorney who used to deal with driving-while-intoxicated criminal matters, I want to say our laws on drunk drivers are much too lenient. In many states, for a first offense, there is probation, no jail, a fine, restricted driver’s license, court costs, some community service and Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. The drunk driver gets the same for a second offense. It is only for a third offense that actual jail time is meted out, and this can be served on weekends. By that time, some of these drunks have killed or maimed someone. They seldom kill or maim themselves.
Our laws should be like Sweden’s. For a first offense - mandatory jail for one year. No time off for good behavior. A second offense is punishable by a three-year mandatory sentence. Sweden’s DWI rate has dropped 95 percent since the above has been implemented. The other 5 percent receive treatment while in prison.
Until such laws are in effect in the United States, we are playing with people’s lives. Most of the dead and injured on our highways are the casualties of alcohol and drug abusers. Apparently, no one has the courage to try to change this. Will you please speak up, Ann? - Houston Lawyer
Dear Houston: Not only have I been “speaking up,” I’ve been screaming about this problem for several years. It hasn’t helped.
As far as I’m concerned, drunk drivers who kill innocent people are murderers and should be treated as such. We could learn a lot from the Swedes.